


Sometimes It Follows You Home

by thilesluna



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Animal Shelter AU, Animal Shelter!Gabriel, Animals, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:31:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thilesluna/pseuds/thilesluna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s not even his dog. It’s some random stray that follows Sam home to his shitty apartment that he’s pretty sure he’s not even allowed to have animals in to begin with."</p><p>Sam doesn't have time in his life for a dog. Or for anything else. Enter: Tall Tails Animal Shelter and it's strange, mysterious owner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s not even his dog. It’s some random stray that follows Sam home to his shitty apartment that he’s pretty sure he’s not even allowed to have animals in to begin with. The thing is dirty and it smells and it’s all skin and bones and he has no idea why, but he lets it follow him up the crumbling steps and in through his door. It’s a pretty big dog, but it’s docile when he herds it into the bathroom and into his shower. It doesn’t do anything but wag it’s little half-tail slightly when Sam lifts it gently into the tub and turns on the water. He briefly thinks about what Dean would say if he knew Sam just brought a random dog home—to be fair, he didn’t so much bring it home as it just followed him for 5 blocks, only blinking sadly when he tried to shoo it away.

Sam should probably call a pound or something but before anything else happens, the thing needs a bath. Or like, twelve of them—it reeks so bad. When he uses one of his big water bottles to dump warm bathwater over the dog’s back, it’s almost black as it goes down the drain. The dog just wiggles and sighs like Sam rubbing the grime from its coat is the best thing that ever happened to it.

It takes close to an hour and half a bottle of Sam’s shampoo before the water is running clear and he can’t smell anything but soap and wet dog. He’s discovered that the stray is a boy and that he’s been neutered. The dog watches Sam carefully when he goes to get a towel from the clothes hamper next to the sink and of course chooses to shake right before Sam can get back with it. The whole bathroom is dripping when he’s done.

Sam glares and the dog just wags his little half-tail again. Now that it’s clean, the stray looks a little better. Sam thinks it might be part boxer with maybe a little Saint Bernard mixed in. Its nose has that pushed in quality but his hair isn’t really hair, it’s more on the fur side, poofy in the spots where the skin seems to be healthier. The dog’s head is dark and the rest of him switches from brindle spots to white to tan. He’s basically a hodge-podge of all different colors. Sam wipes the dog down the best he can and he notices that the stray’s tail seems to be slightly balding where it ends and he realizes that something must have taken off part of it’s tail while it was on the street. He vaguely remembers when he was a kid and one of Aunt Ellen’s cats getting it’s tail crushed by a rocking chair and the end of it falling off. He wonders if the same thing happened to his stray.

_The_ stray. Not _his_ stray. He’s not keeping this dog.

He’s not.

When he walks out of the bathroom, the dog lopes along behind him like it’s been in his apartment for years. Sam’s place isn’t big, it’s one bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen/living room divided by a weird little breakfast bar thing. He’s got a crummy second-hand couch in front of an ancient TV that’s sitting on a coffee table with mismatched legs. It’s not much, but it functions. Most of the time.

Sam crosses into the kitchen and the dog stops right at the edge of the breakfast bar, where the carpet changes to linoleum. It sits and stares while Sam moves around, cocking its head when the refrigerator door opens. Sam can hear it’s nub-tail swishing on the carpet whenever he looks at the stray. He doesn’t have any dog food, but he assumes that this dog’s been eating trash for however long so it won’t mind wolfing down some lo mien from a couple days ago. He dumps it into a bowl and briefly wonders if he should heat it up. He cocks and eyebrow at the dog. The dog sneezes.

Cold it is then.

The lo mien is gone in under 20 seconds and the bowl of water Sam sets next to it is mostly all over the floor but the dog looks happy as it flops to the ground. In fact, his jowls are pulled back in a way that makes him almost look like he’s smiling.

“You’re weird,” Sam says without thinking. The dog’s tail thumps on the ground.

Sam is so not keeping this dog.

\---

He leaves the dog by the couch on a piled up old blanket he pulled from the closet in his room. He considers for a moment, locking the dog in the bathroom but when he laid the blanket on the floor, it wagged it’s stubby tail again, turned two circles, and settled onto the wool plaid like he’d been doing it his whole life. Sam’s bathroom is tiny anyway and it would be cruel to lock the stray in there.

He falls asleep surprisingly fast considering he’s doing one of the dumbest things he’s ever done in his life by bringing a unknown animal into his home. When he wakes up in the morning, it’s to quiet whining outside his door. It stops when he rolls out of the bed, the mattress springs squeaking softly. Sam swings the door open to see the dog sit and swipe it’s tail along the floor a few times. He checks his watch to see that it’s only barely 7:00am, which is pushing it for him on a weekend.

“Early riser?” he says to no one in particular, because he’s definitely not getting attached and talking to the thing. The dog does the weird smiling thing again and nudges his nose into Sam’s leg.

Sam rubs the sleep from his eyes while he turns on his coffee pot. The water bowl next to the breakfast bar is empty so he scoops it up from the ground and fills it. The dog drinks noisily and Sam searches the fridge for something dog-suitable—which, is pretty much anything, honestly.

He pulls a leftover container of curry chicken from the shelf but thinks better of it and grabs a box of brown rice instead. Indian food probably doesn’t sit any better with a dog’s digestive system than a human’s. “We gotta get you some real dog food before you get high cholesterol from all this take out,” Sam mutters. No, gotta get him _somewhere_ where there’s real dog food.

Damnit, he’s not keeping the freaking dog.

The rice ends up all over the floor with the way the stray pushes his nose into the bowl. Sam wants to be annoyed, but the dog does a pretty good job of cleaning it all up afterward. He seems to spend a lot of time licking the leftover rice grains from the recesses of his jowls. Sam pulls out his laptop and looks up animal shelters nearby. One of them is a state-run thing that makes Sam nervous for whatever reason. Probably some random documentary he watched on Netlfix one night he couldn’t sleep. There’s another one called _Tall Tails_ that boasts being a ‘rehabilitation and retirement center for animals of all species’.

Sam takes down the address.

\---

Unfortunately, there’s a leash law in this city so Sam has to either improvise a leash and collar of his own, buy a set, or just hope the stray follows him the way it did into his apartment. The last option, while appealing because maybe the dog will just take off and Sam won’t have to worry about it anymore, is the least likely and Sam doesn’t have anything even close to leash-like, so he runs down the street to the Korean market where he thinks he remembers seeing a pet aisle. He plucks the cheapest set from the display and grunts an answer when friendly Mrs. Niang asks him what kind of dog he got.

Surprisingly, the dog doesn’t seem to give a shit about having a collar put on and just wriggles happily when Sam touches him, adding more evidence to Sam’s hypothesis that he wasn’t always a stray. Someone must have loved him very much and he must have loved them too.

He’s further convinced when he clips the leash on to make the few block’s journey and the dog stays at his side, like it’s been walking on leashes it’s entire life. They stop once on the way and Sam’s glad he remembered to grab an old plastic bag from the kitchen closet when the stray relieves himself on what’s probably the only bit of grass in Sam’s neighborhood. He tosses the bag into the nearest trashcan and they continue on their way to _Tall Tails_. The dog is ridiculously well behaved, like he knows where Sam is taking him and is trying to prove what a good pet he’d make instead. He even sits at every street crossing and nudges Sam when the walk signal goes on as if to say ‘How could you want to get rid of me? Look how smart I am!’

Nice try, doggie. Not buying it.

He starts to wonder how an animal shelter can exist in a city when the dog’s ears perk up. Soon, even Sam’s human ears can make out the sound of dogs barking and they turn the corner to see a squat building sitting next to what was probably once a vacant lot. It’s fences in now and seems to be the source of all the noise. There’s a sign on the building in swirly, colorful font that read _Tall Tails_ and Sam snorts at the cartoon of Paul Bunion’s big blue ox. When he pushes open the door, however, the dog seems hesitant for the first time since this little adventure began.

“Don’t wuss out on me now, “ Sam chides, tugging on the leash.

“It’s the smells,” a voice says from inside. “Takes some getting used to.” Sam peers into the room and sees a small man behind the counter. He’s leaning across the space with a gentle smile and Sam tries his best to ignore the way the curve of his lips and the light in his honey-brown eyes send butterflies through his gut. He’s always liked brown eyes. “Give it a moment. Maybe some encouragement?”

Sam sighs and reaches out to give the dog a cursory pat on the head. It seems to break the spell because the half-nub tail twitches and they enter the shelter. “Good boy,” Sam says without thinking. The dog practically shakes with excitement; its long tongue lolling out of its mouth while it grins up at him.

“See? Not so bad,” the man says, practically dancing his way out from behind the counter. “He’s a beautiful boy. What’s his name?”

Sam sighs. “I don’t know.”

“Umm…what?”

“Not my dog,” he grunts out. “He followed me home.”

The man frowns. “Oh.”

“Yeah. I didn’t know what to do with him,” Sam explains. “He smelled something awful so I cleaned him up and looked you up.”

“I see.” The man squats in front of the dog that strangely takes a step back and behind Sam’s leg. “It’s okay, buddy. Not gonna hurt you.” The dog’s eyes flick up to Sam as he takes another step back. The man looks up at Sam from his position near the floor and he has to ignore the rush of heat it send through him to have the shelter employee nearly on his knees. Sam really needs to get laid some time this century.

“You’re sure he just followed you home?”

“Huh?” Sam shakes himself from his thoughts.

The guy looks doubtful. “I mean we get a lot of people who come in with drop offs because they don’t want the responsibility of a dog in the city.“

“He’s not my dog,” Sam says. “I’m not dropping him off—well I mean I am, but what I’m trying to say is that he wasn’t mine to begin with—I just, I’m not _abandoning_ him! I don’t have time for a dog and my apartment isn’t—“

The guy holds up his hands. “Okay, calm down there kiddo.”

“My name is Sam,” Sam grumbles. “Don’t call me ‘kiddo’.”

“Apologizes, tiger,” the man says, and there’s a glint in his eye that reminds Sam a little bit of Dean. He throws his best bitch face at the guy. “I’m Gabriel, by the way.”

“I didn’t want to take him to the state pound because—I don’t know, there’s like rumors and stuff. I found you on Google,” Sam says, his annoyance coming through in the way he wraps the end of the leash around his hand.

Gabriel crosses back to the other side of the counter and the dog relaxes next to Sam’s leg. “I’m not saying the rumors are true, but some of those rumors are true,” he says flippantly, opening up a notebook in front of him. “Where’d you find him?”

Sam sighs. “He started following me around Avenue C. I live on A.” The dog nudges Sam’s leg with his nose and he reaches down absentmindedly to stroke its ears.

“He seems quite smitten with you,” Gabriel notes.

“I don’t know why,” Sam mutters. “I don’t really come off as nurturing.”

“Maybe he thinks he found a kindred spirit,” the other man muses. “Dogs do that sometimes. It’s not always the person who picks the dog you know.”

“I can’t have—“

“Yeah, no dogs in the apartment,” Gabriel says with a wave of his hand. “I’m assuming there weren’t any tags on him when he decided to become your shadow?” Sam just glares at the man who shrugs and makes a note of it in his notebook. “Anything else?”

“What’s going to happen to him?” The question seems to surprise the both of them, Sam didn’t mean to ask.

“I have a deal with the local news station and some of the papers. He was obviously a stray so they’ll run his picture and his last known location and hopefully someone was missing him,” Gabriel rattles off, like he probably has a hundred times. “Otherwise, he’ll become a part of our pack until someone wants to adopt him. Sadly, he’s a pretty big dog and he’s older so his chances of getting picked are lower.” He sounds sad, like he doesn’t think it’s fair. It probably isn’t, but when parents let their kids drag them into a getting a dog, everyone wants puppies even though they could get a pre-trained, sweetheart of a dog from a shelter.

“Oh.”

Gabriel seems to snap from his mood. “We have plenty of space here. Well, not plenty, but enough. We’ll do temperament tests and figure out how he is with other dogs and cats and the like.”

“Do you have a lot of employees that work here?” Sam asks. The place seems empty.

“Hmm?”

He fiddles with the leash in his hand. “You keep saying ‘we’. Are there a lot of other people who work here?”

“Counting volunteers, part-time, and full-time employees?” Gabriel asks.

Sam nods.

Gabriel pauses. “One,” he laughs. “It’s actually just me at the moment.”

Sam’s eyebrows do their best to rise into his hair. “How many animals are here?”

The man thinks it over. He looks like he’s mentally adding in his head. “Six dogs, five cats, two hamsters, a parrot, and a couple rabbits. The parrot is technically mine, but she comes to work with me.”

Sam whistles. “Damn.”

“They keep me busy,” Gabriel grins.

Sam’s fingers find the dog’s ears again. “How do you pay for it all?”

The man shrugs. “Some donations, a grant or two. Also my father was filthy rich and I got a stupid amount of money when the old bastard died.” He says it casually, but Sam thinks there might be more to that story. The room is quiet except for the gentle tapping of the dog’s tail on the floor.

Sam finally speaks. “Is there a way—“

“I can let you know what happens to him?” Gabriel finishes.

“Yeah, I guess.”

The man fishes a business card from the other side of the counter and scribbles something on it. “Sure. This is my card and that’s my cell number. You can give me a call or shoot me a text any time.”

Sam’s fingers brush the other man’s when Gabriel hands over the card. “Uh, thanks. I guess.”

“You want a minute to say goodbye?”

Sam shrugs and then nods. “Yeah, okay.” Gabriel ducks from the room quietly while Sam kneels to the ground. The dog wiggles happily into his space. “Look, I don’t know why you followed me home, but I can’t keep you, okay? You’re going to stay here with the other dogs and real dog food and a place to run around,” he explains, even though he’s talking to a dog and it probably doesn’t mean anything to the dog. Maybe it does though, because the stray whines and pushes his face into Sam’s chest. “I can’t,” he whispers. “We’re not kindred spirit or whatever. You’re just a lost dog and I can’t keep you.” The dog moves closer and sets his paws on Sam’s thighs, levering himself up so their faces are even. He leans forward and licks a stripe up Sam’s face. “Stop it. You’re making this hard. I don’t even want you. I’d be the worst owner,” Sam says, scratching the dog on the neck. “I can’t even take care of myself.”

With that, he pushes away, stands and walks out of the shelter. He doesn’t look back to see the dog’s face in the window of the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam leaves the stray at the shelter. But he can't get it--or Gabriel--out of his head.

Sam leaves the bowls on the floor for a whole week before he finally chides himself for being such an idiot. He types Gabriel’s number into an outgoing text at least four times but can never seem to think of anything to say. He wonders about the dog and the strange shelter owner, even mentioning them to Dean when they have their bi-weekly phone call. When he brings them up again on Friday while he’s making himself dinner, Dean stops the conversation.

“ _What’s the deal with the dog, Sam?_ ”

“What do you mean?” Sam asks, tucking the phone between his chin and shoulder to drain his pasta.

“ _I didn’t even know you liked dogs and now you’re bringing in strays and when you give it to a shelter, it’s all you can talk about,_ ” Dean says.

“It’s not—“

“ _Sam, you sound_ wistful _. I haven’t heard that since Je—_ “

“Dean.”

“ _Come on Sammy, it’s been four years and I still can’t even say her name?_ ”

“No,” Sam says. He’s being a child.

“ _You’re being a child_ ,” Dean grunts. “ _Why didn’t you keep the dog, Sam?_ ”

Sam groans. “You’ve been hanging out with Cas too much. You sound like a therapist right now.”

Dean chuckles on the other end of the line. “ _He says I sound like you, Cas._ ”

“He’s home? Tell him I say hi.”

“ _You’re evading, Sammy. Why not just keep the dog?_ ” Dean asks.

“Jesus, Dean. I don’t—I can’t have it in my apartment.”  
“ _Move,_ ” his brother says simply. “ _You have more than enough money to no live in that shithole_.”

“It’s not a shithole,” Sam grumbles.

Dean sighs. “ _Sure it isn’t._ ”

“Jerk.”

“ _Bitch_.”

“I don’t have time with work for a dog anyway. He’d just be stuck home all day,” Sam tries.

“ _Yeah but don’t you have an in with that shelter guy? You could do like a doggy day care thing or something,_ ” Dean counters.

“I don’t have an ‘in’, Dean,” Sam says rolling his eyes.

“ _He gave you his cell number! He wants to hit that!_ ” his brother exclaims.

“Classy.”

“ _Have you texted him?_ ” Sam doesn’t answer in favor of adding pasta sauce to his noodles. Also he doesn’t want to.

“ _I’ll take that as a no_.”

“Dean.”

“ _Sam_.”

“It’s not—“

“ _—that easy? Yes it fuckin’ is, Sammy._ ”

“Why are you pushing this,” Sam bites out, mixing his food angrily.

The line is quiet, but he can hear a rustle of fabric that sounds almost like someone sitting on Dean’s lap. When his brother answers, his voice has lost the bitterness. It sounds helpless. “ _I don’t like that you’re always alone, Sam. You wake up, you go to work, you come home. You’re always alone._ ”

“I’m not—“

“ _Yes you are,_ ” Dean says, cutting him off. “ _You think I don’t know you, Sammy, but I do. I know you’re still punishing yourself. I just think maybe the dog would help._ ”

“And the shelter guy?”

Dean makes a noise over the line like he doesn’t particularly want to think about his little brother’s sex life, but he’ll take one for the team. Dean is the worst. “ _Just think about it, Sammy._ ”

Sam sighs. “Fine.”

“ _Love ya little brother_.”

“Sure you do. Tell Castiel _he’s_ welcome to visit any time,” Sam retorts.

“ _You wound me_ ,” Dean laughs.

“Shut up and go be happy with your doctor boyfriend.”

“ _Think about what I said, Sam. Just think about it, okay?_ ”

Sam rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, okay.” They hang up and when he looks down at his bowl of pasta, he realizes he’s not really hungry anymore.

\----

He does finally text Gabriel. He figures that even if he’s drunk at the time, it still counts. It takes a moment for him to realize this is what his life has become; drunk texting the owner of an animal shelter—who he was more than a little bit attracted to—while he’s sitting at home alone in his apartment on a Saturday night.

**To: 555-3264**

**-You probaly dont remember me but i brought a dog in last week. its sam. is the dog ok?**

Sam presses send before he can think about it any more and then spends the next 13 minutes hating himself. He’s getting another beer from the fridge when he hears his phone vibrate against the surface of the breakfast bar. He considers just ignoring it forever, going to the store tomorrow and buying a new phone and getting a new number because it’s gotta be less painful than whatever Gabriel is going to respond with.

**From: 555-3264**

**-heya Sam! Of course i remember u!  u brought in the guy thats been stealin my heart for the last couple days. hes doin okay. think he misses u tho**

Misses him? Sam only had the dog a night. He shakes his head and wills his fingers to behave when he shoots a text back.

**To: 555-3264**

**-im glad hes ok. what do you mean misses me**

**-?**

Sam takes another pull from his bottle of beer. He fiddles with his phone, takes it out of its case and then shoves it back in. He shouldn’t be doing this, but Dean’s words are still ringing in his ears. He is alone. He’s been alone since he moved here to get away from the house in California. He’s living a life where there’s no risk because taking chances just means something is going to go wrong. Sam knows this and he thinks he might be cursed, because something always tends to go wrong. He peels the label from his beer and rips it to pieces before his phone goes off again.

**From: 555-3264**

**-wouldnt let me near him the first day and he didnt eat at first**

Oh good. Sam feels like shit.

**-kinda lke he was pining. hes better now tho. he keeps starin out the windows**

And then, because maybe what Dean was saying is sitting heavier in Sam’s head now that he’s drunk, he does what he promised himself he wouldn’t as he throws himself down onto his lumpy couch.

**To: Gabriel (Tall Tails)**

**-do you think itd be bzd if i visitede?**

**-bad**

**-it probably woudl right after you finally got him settled**

If it were Dean, he’d have put Gabriel under some nickname like ‘Animal Lover’ or ‘Short Stuff’, Sam muses. When his brother met Cas and got his number, it was in Dean’s phone as ‘Dr. Sexy’ for almost a year until Sam ratted him out one drunken night. Castiel had just shrugged and said it wasn’t anything worse than what Dean called him in the bedroom. Dean had spit out his beer and Sam never brought it up again. Ever.

**From: Gabriel (Tall Tails)**

**-shud be fine. havin second thoughts about taking him home?**

**-or do u just wanna see me again? ;-)**

And Sam will forever blame the four Jack and cokes and three beers for this but the last thing he sends back before passing out with his legs draped over the arm of the couch is:

            **-mayb its a little of both. ill be by tomorow**

\---

He wakes up to a message from Gabriel that basically he’s excited to have him come in and visit. Everything is terrible.

Sam contemplates not going. He seriously, _seriously_ thinks about lying in bed instead of making the trek over to the shelter. He’s a little bit hungover and a lot sore from sleeping on his couch most of the night (he got up around 4am and moved to his bed). He lies there, lamenting his life choices, looking at the texts from the previous night over and over.

He has to go now. Fuck. He’s gonna go, but he’s definitely getting coffee first.

Sam ends up picking up a couple pastries too, thinking that they might make some headway in apologizing for drunk texting someone he doesn’t even know. They rustle around in the bag while he takes the walk over and he hopes the icing hasn’t all come off by the time he actually gets there.

The second he walks in, a parrot flies straight at his face and he has to drop to the floor to avoid a face full of feathers. The bird cackles and swoops down at him once more when he raises his head before flapping off to a perch on the counter. It eyes him suspiciously as he scrambles to his feet.

Gabriel comes rushing into the room, either the sound of the parrot—definitely not the totally manly sound Sam made as he hit the ground—drawing him to the waiting room. The parrot ruffles its green feathers, stretches out its wings and makes a pleased sound as it watches Sam lie prone on the floor.

Gabriel scrambles around the counter and shoots a glare at the bird. “Atti! No! I’m so sorry, Sam!” He hooks a hand under Sam’s arm and tugs him to his feet.

“It’s okay,” he tries.

“No it’s not. She knows better,” Gabriel huffs.

“No better,” the bird squawks.

“Don’t sass me, Atti. I’ll put you in the back room,” the smaller man threatens. The parrot ducks her head a few times, spreading her wings in what looks like a bow. “That’s right. Now apologize to Sam. Say you’re sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” the bird says.

“Atti—“

“Sorry,” Atti trills. “Sorry Sammy.”

Sam tries to smile at the bird. “She’s smart.” Atti just glares at him.

“Too smart,” Gabriel grumbles.

“Atti?” Sam asks. The bird ignores him, scratching behind her head with a foot.

“Short for Atticus. You know, Atticus Finch, _To Kill a Mockingbird_? It was my favorite book and when I rescued her I thought she was a boy,” Gabriel shrugs. “Atti it was.”

“Rescue?”

“Yeah, they found her in a tiny cage in a puppy mill about ten years ago. They think she was about seven at the time. She’s in her terrible teens,” the man explains. “She was kind of one of those, ‘the pet chooses the owner’ deals. Like, she literally perched on me when I walked into the shelter she was at and refused to get off.” Gabriel smiles fondly at her and snaps his fingers. She flutters off her perch and onto his shoulder. “So! You wanna visit with Frank?”

“You named the dog Frank?”

Gabriel shrugs. “Had to name him something! Couldn’t just call him ‘Dog’.” He makes his way around the counter and gestures for Sam to follow. Sam sets the pastry bag on the counter as he follows the smaller man, his eye warily on the bird. She keeps turning around on Gabriel’s shoulder to glare at him.

He decides to ignore her. “Yeah, but why Frank?”

“After Sinatra of course,” the man answers. “You know, Ol’ Blue Eyes? The Rat Pack?”

Sam stumbles over a fallen broom as he makes his way through the back hall. “Rat Pack?”

“Yeah, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, and Sammy Davis Jr.” That startles an unexpected laugh out of Sam. “What?” Gabriel asks, turning to face him.

“It’s just—“ Sam starts, “Well, I’m Sam and my brother’s name is Dean. So—“

Gabriel breaks into a grin. “Wouldn’t happen to have an Uncle Peter would you?”

Sam laughs. “Nah, just an Uncle Bobby and a psedo-cousin named Garth. Dean would be quick to remind you that Garth isn’t family by blood, but I think he’s just saying that. He loves the kid.”

“I mean, this is kind of perfect, isn’t it?” Gabriel laughs. Sam finds himself grinning along as he shakes his head. “Anyway, Frank and his cohorts are back here.”

The second Gabriel opens the door to the outside run, furry, wriggling bodies swarm Sam. Cold, wet noses are pushed against his hands and there are at least six paws stomping all over his sneakers. A familiar face pushes its way through and even though Frank isn’t a small dog, he’s skinny enough that Sam can catch him in his arms when the dog launches into the air. Frank goes to town, lick Sam’s face and neck until the man is laughing and kneels to set the dog back on the ground. The other dogs take this as license to tackle him even further and cover him in fur and slobber.

A loud whistle cuts through the air and all the dogs—save Frank—stop and sit, looking expectantly in Gabriel’s direction. A little Jack Russell next to Sam’s head vibrates with excitement. Gabriel snaps his fingers and the grins when all the dogs—minus Frank again—scramble to sit in front of the shelter owner. He opens the door to the indoor kennels they passed on their way out. He looks at the Jack Russell and Sam laughs when its ears perk up.

“Ella,” Gabriel addresses the dog, “Why don’t you lead for breakfast?” He gestures through the doorway with a flourish and the dog obediently trots inside, the others following close behind.

“Ella?” Sam asks.

“As in Fitzgerald,” Gabriel says with a smirk.

“Born after your time?”

“Nah, I just dig the music,” the man says, shrugging.

Sam laughs. “Dean’s the same way. He’s been listening to Zeppelin since he was in the womb.” He watches Gabriel for a moment. “That was really incredible you know.”

The man shrugs again. “Most dogs just want to please you, you know? I just treat them right and they’re surprisingly easy to train.”  
“I think you’re selling yourself short,” Sam replies with a huff. Frank is doing his best to settle himself directly on Sam’s sternum.

“That a crack at my height, Sammy?” Gabriel asks with a grin.

“Sammy,” Atti echoes.

“Nah,” Sam says with an easy smile of his own as he scratches behind Frank’s ears. “That’d be too easy. Just saying that you’re like a regular dog whisperer or something.”

“Yeah except without the TV show and product endorsements,” Gabriel laughs. One of Frank’s boney dog elbows digs into Sam’s ribs and he grunts. He pushes the dog lightly and sits up. Frank already looks world’s better from when he first followed Sam home. His coat is softer when Sam runs his hands over it and Frank arches into the touch when he does. The dog squeezes his way between Sam’s legs and wiggles in as close as he can, shoving his face into the man’s neck.

“Just so you know,” says Gabriel, cutting through the relative quiet of the dog run, “this is probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, and I sometimes bring Gene to the children’s hospital downtown.

Sam clears his throat and pushes Frank a little further back, just enough so that he can stand. “I’m just glad he’s doing okay.” The dog plasters himself to Sam’s leg, his half-tail wagging.

“He’s doing fine,” Gabriel admits. “But this is the first time I’ve seen him look really happy.”

“Happy,” Atti confirms.

The shelter owner studies Sam and Frank carefully before speaking. “Follow me to my office,” he says. “You can bring your friend.” They head into the building and straight to a little office near the front of the shelter. It’s cluttered and messy, papers littering the desk and books shoved as tight as they can into bookshelves that line the walls. Gabriel sets Atti down on a perch next to the big wooden desk and gestures for Sam to sit in the chair opposite his. Sam sits carefully and Frank settles in the space between his legs once more. He finds himself petting the dog without even realizing it, but Frank’s little stump tail is wagging hard and he can’t find it in him to stop. They sit there quietly for a minute, Gabriel’s looking at him with his head cocked to the side like he can’t quite figure out what Sam is doing. The silence is more than a little deafening.

“Gabriel—“ he starts, but the other man holds up a hand to stop him.

“Who did you lose?” Gabriel asks abruptly.

“W-What?”

“Before I was this,” the man says, waving his arms around his office, “I was a grief counselor. It’s actually how I got into this. Animals are perfect for people who are recovering from a loss. I got my first cat after we lost my older brother.”

“I—“  
“Animals don’t care if you snore or if you fart or if you leave the toilet seat up. All they care about is that you love them and a lot of the time, people who are dealing with loss are scared to put love into something new because it’s terrifying to lose it all over,” Gabriel continues. Sam feels like he’s panicking because these are things he doesn’t tell people. He keeps his curse to himself. Gabriel looks at him like he knows everything.

“Gabriel—I—“ His fingers tighten in Frank’s fur and the dog inches as close as he can, like he can tell Sam is freaking out.

“That first cat I got, her name was Josie. She was like Frank. She followed me home and sat outside my door for a whole day and even though everyone told me not to, I left food and water outside thinking she’d go away after a little while.” Gabriel wrestles his wallet out of his back pocket and flips it open to pull something carefully tucked inside. “She stayed out there for a whole week, even after I stopped leaving food.” He pushes a picture across the desk to Sam who picks it up with shaking fingers. It’s a calico cat staring up from the inside of what looks like a fort made of couch cushions. The photo is old, creased and fading around the edges but Josie is staring right at the camera and for some reason, Sam can see something in her face that looks exactly like Frank when he does his strange grin. “She chose me,” Gabriel says softly.

“How?” Sam asks, though he barely recognizes his own voice. It’s rough and tired and it sounds like he did four years ago when he called Dean to tell him about the fire. Told him about how he’d never see Jess again. Cried until he couldn’t breathe. “How do you just open up when you know how it’s going to end?”

Gabriel gets up from his seat and moves to stand next to Sam who looks up at him from the picture. “It’s hard, but the alternative is to just fade away because you’re so fucking alone that it’s killing you. You have to open yourself up to this creature and trust that they won’t break your heart because they won’t. No dog or cat or whatever sets out with hate in its heart. Humans make them that way through neglect abuse and even _then_ an animal can be taught to trust and love all over because they weren’t build with the capacity to hate someone who loves them back.”

And you know what I’ve found?” Gabriel asks, setting a hand on Sam’s cheek, “Humans are pretty much the same. You’ve got to let Frank in, Sam. Let him love you and let yourself love him back. He chose you.”

Sam is quiet for a long time, looking up at Gabriel, searching his face and finding nothing but honesty. Frank rests his head on Sam’s knee, licks his hand gently and when Sam looks down at him, pulls back his jowls in his strange, perfect smile. The man finds it impossible not to smile back, a brief upturning of his lips before he turns back to Gabriel.

“Will you help me?” he asks quietly.

A grin flashes across Gabriel’s face quickly and he leans into Sam’s personal space. “Sam, all you had to do was ask.”

It turns out that Sam’s apartment allows pets after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hi yes so this is done.
> 
> I might be convinced to do an epilogue as the Sabriel together-ness is kind of ambiguous but we all know Sam can't resist Gabriel for long.


End file.
